1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention generally relates to wagering and, more particularly, to methods of conducting wagering activities including, for example, methods and systems for accepting and pricing wagers and establishing prize pools for wagers conducted competitively as a contest and, optionally, in parallel with conventional wagering activities, such as pari-mutuel wagering.
2. State of the Art:
Wagering relates to the placing of wagers or bets by a plurality of individuals on the outcome of an event, wherein bettors who place “winning” wagers typically share a betting pool minus a percentage taken out for the management or administration of the wagering activity by the “house,” or organization conducting the game. Traditional casino gaming, as well as lotteries and pari-mutuel wagering, are typical examples.
In pari-mutuel wagering, often associated with animal racing (e.g., horses or dogs) individuals may place wagers on one or more aspects of the outcome of at least one race. These aspects may include, for example, which of the participants (also referred to herein as runners) will win, place (second) and show (third) in the race, the order in which a plurality of runners will finish the race (e.g., exacta-ordered prediction of first and second place; trifecta—ordered prediction of first, second and third place; superfecta—ordered prediction of first through fourth place; etc.), or a runner finishing within a specified range of positions (e.g., a “show” wager for a given runner to finish in either first, second or third place; or a “quinella” wager for predicting the first and second place finishers regardless of order).
For those individuals who have placed a winning wager such that their prediction matches an actual event outcome, their payout is related, in part, to the probability of occurrence of the wager (e.g., a show wager vs. a trifecta wager), and, in part, by the size of the pool as defined by the total amount of wagers placed for a given event and, in part, the specific wagers made by other bettors. Thus, for example, if a defined prize pool is to be paid out to those wagers that selected runner X as the winner and, for example, 20 individual wagers were placed on runner X to win, the prize pool will be divided among those 20 bettors in proportion to the amount each of the 20 individual bettors wagered on such an outcome.
Pari-mutuel wagering is preferred by some individuals because a wager may be “handicapped” in the sense that a bettor may study different facets of an event to make an educated prediction of the outcome of the event prior to placing their wager. For example, in a horse race, a bettor may review the past performances of the horses in that race, the training histories of the horses, the breeding histories of the horses, which jockeys will be participating and other related information. Consideration of such information enables a bettor to make a more educated prediction regarding the outcome of a race or other event.
Many individuals prefer other types of wagering activities, such as slot machines, purchasing of lottery tickets or other conventional wagering activities offered at a casino or a lottery facility, because they find the act of handicapping a pari-mutuel wager to be complex, difficult and time consuming. Furthermore, many individuals find pari-mutuel wagering tedious, slow and time consuming since often there is a significant period of time between races at racing facilities and several minutes may pass between the time an individual places a wager on a race and the outcome of the wager is made known. Such extended time lags are in contrast to casino wagering, wherein multiple wagers may be placed in a game substantially concurrently or in quick succession and the outcome of each wager made known in rapid succession, such as with slot machines, roulette, keno or craps.
Regardless of the type of wagering activity, the betting event itself (e.g., the running of a race, the spinning of slot machine reels, the roll of the dice) is generally of short duration and, since the laws of gaming dictate that players lose more often than they win, it is easy for players to deplete their wagering funds more quickly than is desirable. Extended losing experiences and the resulting premature fund depletion produce a number of negative consequences, including discouragement to the point of abandoning the wagering activity in favor of other pursuits (with a resulting decrease in gaming revenue) or the compensatory spontaneous increase in wagering activity or wager amounts attempting to win back losses, which can create financial hardship, marital discord and other social problems.
Most wagering activity is solitary, and it is difficult for players to evaluate their performance relative to the performance of others. A player's comparative perception of winning or losing is based upon his or her personal experience vis-à-vis the experiences of players immediately adjacent to that player. For example, slot machine players are generally unaware of other players' experiences outside their immediate area. Similarly, blackjack, craps and roulette players are aware only of the performances of players sharing the same table. A few games, such as poker, feature a competitive element whereby winners directly compete against each other and win at the expense of their fellow players. This competitive element provides a level of personal involvement and a sense of drama that most other conventional gaming activities lack. While there exists some social aspect to gaming, it is generally manifested in discussing techniques (e.g., which machines are “hot,” how to handicap, etc.), boasting about winning experiences or commiserating about losing experiences. The isolated nature of gaming and the brevity of gaming events discourage interaction and generally do not foster a sense of competition.
In contrast, contest based games, such as fantasy football or baseball, emphasize—indeed have the main focus of—competition against other human competitors and encourage the individual to evaluate his performance against the performance of others. Generally played on the Internet, fantasy games currently enjoy unprecedented levels of popularity despite the absence of significant cash prizes. Buzztime Entertainment, Inc., a subsidiary of NTN Communications, Inc., distributes sports and trivia games to a variety of interactive platforms in thousands of sports bars and premier casual restaurants in the United States and Canada. Like most Internet fantasy leagues, these entertaining skill-based games do not offer significant cash prizes. Instead, their popularity results from the fact that they are designed to enable direct competition between the contestants, provide an extended entertainment experience (often lasting hours), they are free of charge, they are located in social venues and, perhaps most significantly, they are interactive, i.e., via a sophisticated communications network, players in one locale can compete and compare their performances to the performances of other individuals and groups throughout the United States and Canada.
There have also been various attempts by pari-mutuel venues to attract individuals who are inclined to participate in wagering activities that offer some form of direct competition with other bettors. For example, pari-mutuel venues have periodically offered so-called handicapping tournaments wherein a bettor decides to enter the contest and pays an entry fee by which a specified number of participants may compete with one another for a preselected distribution of the cumulative sum of the entry fees, prizes, or both. In comparison to lottery jackpots or prizes, these handicapping tournaments typically offer much smaller payouts or rewards, and there must be an affirmative decision by the patron to enter the contest.
Handicapping tournament schemes as described above have been limited in their appeal to bettors because they offer very modest rewards and prizes. This is a material drawback because a significant factor in attracting patron interest to the point of incentivizing a patron to pay the entry fee is the size of the probable jackpot that a patron can expect to win. Thus, it would be desirable from the pari-mutuel venue's standpoint to provide relatively large jackpots and to provide relative predictability for the patron in providing such jackpots to attract a large and regular group of patrons. However, in conventional pari-mutuel wagering activities, where odds are affected by the betting proclivities of the patrons, the reward for winning is inversely related to the ability of the bettor population to predict the outcome of a given event or series of events. Because the predictability of outcomes may vary considerably from one event (e.g., race) to another, a pari-mutuel venue has little control over the awards offered in association with such events. Furthermore, in conventional pari-mutuel wagering, there is no degree of certainty whatsoever, other than that provided by betting more slowly or in smaller amounts, as to the amount of time that a given amount of money that is wagered will provide betting opportunities or entertainment.
In view of the shortcomings in the art and needs attendant thereto, the inventors herein have recognized that it would be advantageous to provide a method and system for wagering that is attractive to a wide variety of patrons, which provides an easily perceptible potential for increased jackpots and provides greater predictability in providing betting opportunities or entertainment for an extended period of time. It would also be advantageous to provide a method and system for wagering such that a given bettor is enabled to actively compete against other bettors in a prize environment structured differently than that associated with conventional pari-mutuel wagering and, optionally, in association with conventional pari-mutuel wagering.
Even more specifically, the inventors herein have recognized that it would be desirable to provide a wagering activity in which a small entry fee makes players eligible for significant cash or merchandise prizes, or both and that provides an extended gaming experience to provide great value for the entertainment dollar (such economy essentially enabling participants to lose money at a slower rate). It would also be desirable to provide a wagering activity that would support individual competition, as well as competition among teams or groups formed on an ad hoc basis in betting locations, and that would provide real-time competition among participants. It would further be desirable to provide a wagering activity that accurately simulates (does not corrupt the integrity of) the underlying (or base) game, in which players can track their own performances relative to the performances of competing players or teams and in which winners are defined and determined by variable criteria that provide flexibility, variety and entertainment. Other desirable aspects for a wagering activity would be the capability to link players from around the country or even around the world in a common direct competition for cash or merchandise prizes.
To enhance entertainment value in a responsible fashion, the inventors herein have recognized that it would be desirable to provide a wagering activity that provides participants an element of fantasy by providing play money or “fantasy dollars” from which to place wagers. By using fantasy dollars, participants will be able to bet more, bet more often and place bets they would not ordinarily place when playing with their own money. Concurrently, the risk of overspending will be significantly reduced and the psychological difficulty of losing wagers will be diminished. Therefore, such a wagering activity would desirably reduce the likelihood of problem gaming by controlling or limiting player expenditures while allowing players to authentically play the featured game (horseracing, slots, blackjack, etc.). One desirable implementation of a wagering activity would permit the prize pool (or prize fund) to be allocated on a pari-mutuel basis as a percentage of sales (wagers) but also possess the flexibility necessary to permit easy adjustment or alteration of specific prizes in order to provide variety and interest to different demographic groups.
Another desirable implementation of a wagering activity, as recognized by the inventors herein, would provide a wagering activity that would attract occasional, infrequent, lapsed and even non-players of the featured, competitive game to attract new players to the venues hosting the featured contest game.
It would also be desirable, as recognized by the inventors, to provide a wagering activity that can be configured to be run as tournaments among individuals or teams, that can be distributed through a variety of wagering venues including race tracks, off-track betting facilities, retail establishments (where legal), casinos, lotteries and on the Internet and that would provide automatic and immediate performance feedback (individual and team performance, leader boards or other indicia of standings, contest time remaining, account balances, etc.) to participants via text messaging, cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), interactive television, email, etc. Such an activity would desirably be enabled to be run in a specific environment at a specific location on a stand-alone (or closed) system or be electronically linked to include play in a plurality of environments or at a plurality of locations.
Such a wagering activity, as contemplated by the inventors, might also be a parameter-driven wagering game that permits the track or other operator to vary the length of the competition and the awarding of prizes, e.g., hourly winners, daily winners, weekly winners, etc. The criteria of winning might also desirably be variable, adjustable and easily modified. For example, winning could be defined as the player placing the most bets (or most plays) in a specified period, the player with the most wins in a specified period, the player with the highest winning percentage, the player winning the most “play money” in a specified time, etc. Alternatively or in addition, a wagering activity might desirably provide the ability to add attractive marketing features e.g., free or player-paid bonus features such as doubling or tripling winnings during specified hours; raffle-based drawings among previous winners (or all entrants or the population of non-winners); bonus awards for players attaining defined thresholds of winnings, wagers, winning percentages, etc.
To enhance implementation of such a wagering activity, it would desirably feature an architecture to permit parallel processing with other, related wagering activities. For example, when placing conventional bets into a live pool at a racetrack, those bets might automatically and simultaneously be entered into the contest pool for those players who elected to participate in the contest wager.